Maintenance of Effort

The term “Maintenance of Effort,” often shortened to “MOE,” refers to the requirement placed upon many federally funded grant programs that the Local Education Agencies (LEA) demonstrate that the level of state and local expenditures remains relatively constant from year to year.
The rules regulating MOE differ depending on the federal program requiring the effort.

Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) – Title I

A Local Education Agency (LEA) may receive its full allocation of covered ESEA programs for any fiscal year only if the State Educational Agency (SEA) determines that the LEA has maintained its fiscal effort in accordance with section 9521 of ESEA.
Section 9521 provides that an LEA may receive covered program funds for any fiscal year only if either the combined fiscal effort per student or the aggregate expenditures for the preceding fiscal year was not less than 90 percent of the combined fiscal effort or aggregate expenditures for the second preceding fiscal year.

An LEA must not use funds provided under Part B of the IDEA to reduce the level of expenditures for the education of children with disabilities made by the LEA from local, or state and local, funds below the level of those expenditures for the preceding fiscal year.

Two different comparisons are completed each fiscal year. The first comparison examines local, or state and local, special education budgeted expenditures to actual local, or state and local, special education expenditures from the most recent prior fiscal year for which information is available. This comparison is completed in the IDEA application, to determine if the LEA is eligible to receive the IDEA entitlement grant. The second comparison examines two fiscal years’ actual local, or state and local, special education expenditures to determine if the LEA is in compliance with IDEA MOE requirements. This compliance test occurs after the fiscal year has ended.